Memorial Designations and Tourist Routes
On July 1, 1924, the State Administrative Board named M‑12, the predecessor to US 2 in Michigan, the Bohn Highway to honor Frank P. Bohn, a prominent local citizen who later served in Congress from 1927 to 1933. In 1929, the residents of Escanaba created a memorial to the veterans of World War I called Memory Lane. The project consisted of elm and maple trees planted along US 2/US 41 west of town. The American Legion sold the trees to local businesses and individuals who could honor specific soldiers. Later in 1949, the Bessemer Women's Club created a tribute in the form of a permanent living memorial to the area veterans. Also called Memory Lane, the group planted 140 elms and 1,840 evergreens, trees and shrubs as a landscaped parkway along 2.3 miles (3.7 km) of US 2 east of Bessemer.
Most of US 2, along with US 23 in the Lower Peninsula, was designated the United Spanish War Veterans Memorial Highway in 1949. To connect the gap in the routing where US 2 cuts through Wisconsin, M‑95 and M‑69 were used in place of US 2 between Iron Mountain and Crystal Falls. Signs marking the highway were not erected until 1968 when Governor George W. Romney had them installed.
The Amvets Memorial Drive designation was created for the section of US 2/US 41/M‑35 between the northern Escanaba city limits and County Road 426 (CR 426) in Delta County. The American Veterans (AMVETS) organization in Michigan petitioned the Michigan Legislature to grant this designation, which was assigned under Public Act 144 in 1959.
Two sections of US 2 are part of the overall Great Lakes Circle Tour (GLCT): the segment from the Wisconsin state line near Ironwood to the M‑28 junction in Wakefield is part of the Lake Superior Circle Tour (LSCT), and the segment from the southern M‑35 junction in Escanaba to the eastern terminus in St. Ignace is part of the Lake Michigan Circle Tour (LMCT). These two tours were created in May 1986 through a joint effort between MDOT and its counterparts in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario. The section of US 2 between Iron River and Crystal Falls has been named the Iron County Heritage Trail. This Michigan Heritage Route was designated to honor the "rich history of two industries that built a state and nation: mining and logging." On August 26, 2007, MDOT announced that the section of US 2 that runs concurrently with M‑35 in Delta County was being included in the UP Hidden Coast Recreational Heritage Trail.
Read more about this topic: Iron County Heritage Trail
Famous quotes containing the words memorial, tourist and/or routes:
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“There is a mystery that floats between
The tourist and the town. Imagination
Estranges it from her. She need not suffer
Or die here. It is none of her affair,
Its calm heroic vistas make no claim.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)